


Through Your Eyes

by swampthot



Category: Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-06 23:12:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14658204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swampthot/pseuds/swampthot
Summary: scene rewrite I did for English classGatsby and Nick’s last moments together from a different perspective.





	Through Your Eyes

Leaning in the doorway of my mansion, I saw Nick storm briskly across my lawn an hour or two hours after dawn, looking as perturbed as ever, the gears and wheels turning, on some sort of mission of his own, and were it not for the restless night that had passed me by and the unspeakable anxieties drowning out all other cares, it would have amused me.

Of course, he was coming to follow up about the unpleasantness the other night, and so I told him. “Nothing happened.”

He hesitated a moment, I suppose, to allow me to finish speaking. “I waited,” I said, “and about four o’clock she came to the window and stood there for a moment and turned out the light.” In saying this I felt my throat close up a little, trying to keep the seeming finality of what I said from escaping into the open. Of course, though, I reasoned inwardly, she could not have said anything to me with her- with Tom, volatile, unstable Tom, keeping his most restrictive and cruel vigil over her.

Nick may have seen my inner turmoil, or he may not have, but either way he kept silent. I beckoned him into the house- “I’ll order you up some breakfast, old sport, the cook makes a fantastic quiche Lorraine-” but he of course did not follow me inside for such a material pleasure as this, just as he did not attend my parties for the fountains of champagne, just as he did not allow me to trespass on his lawn and his cousin and his life for “business connections”. He followed me inside because he chose to. Truly there was nothing, nothing in the world with which I could possibly have managed to buy his friendship: it had been a gift of his own discretion.

We combed through the house for cigarettes, searching here and there, opening windows to free the dust that had inexplicably settled, pulling aside the massive curtains to let in the light. As Nick explored he looked more and more like a lost and drunk stranger, once tripping over the grand piano, taking the entire house in as if he’d never seen it before. It occurred to me that it was, in a sense, true: there was so much of it he hadn’t had the opportunity of viewing.

This realization had quite a strange effect on me, but before I could say anything, Nick spoke with a directness that might have been called brusque. “You ought to go away.”

I volunteered nothing.

“It’s pretty certain that they’ll trace your car.” I heard perhaps a hint of desperation in his warning tone. Of course Nick would attempt to apply the most amount of logic to the scenario, but he did not know what I knew, and at that moment I truly believed in Daisy.

“Go away now, old sport?” I let nothing but my incredulity at the idea be known.

“Go to Atlantic City for a week. Or up to Montreal.” The outstanding surreality of the situation began to bite at me a little. Daisy had killed a girl with my car. I was a possible accomplice to manslaughter, and Nick, transparently and honestly, was concerned with my safety, wanted me out of town, far from any suspicion.

He let the subject matter drop, seeing my absolute committal to staying, to waiting for Daisy’s word, and looked around once more. Again I saw him taking in the sights of unfamiliar rooms in an unfamiliar house, and I was stricken with the urge, or the need, to lead him around a bit.

“Old sport-” I began hesitantly, hating the way those two words fell from my lips. I had never addressed him as Nick, never broken through that cold barrier of distance, and was completely unable to fathom what would happen if I ever tried. “There are some parts of my past, parts that- Listen, I’ve not told you the whole truth, have I.”

He looked slightly perplexed, though not a bit surprised. “Parts of your past.”

And because he was a good listener, the stories flowed from me, regaling the nights spent in Daisy’s house stealing her virtue from her very hands, on Dan Cody’s ship becoming to him everything a son could be and more, and the very beginning of my origin story, poor as the dirt that blew tumultuously through the North Dakota fields in which I had been reared.

How long we talked I had no idea, and eventually we went to the drawing room and our breakfast was brought to us, and still I talked, trying to turn on every light in every room of the endlessly grand house.

After we had finished our breakfast and went out to the porch, my gardener approached me.

“I’m going to drain the pool today, Mr. Gatsby. Leaves’ll start falling pretty soon, and then there’s always trouble with the pipes.”

“Don’t do it today,” I blurted. With his talk of leaves, I felt the all the minutes left of summer falling away, one after the other, as the brisk cruel winds of fall loomed menacingly on the horizon. I addressed Nick: “You know, old sport, I’ve never used that pool all summer?” I felt a sudden longing then to reach out and- And what? Touch him? Keep him from leaving me?

Nick shifted, glanced at his watch, and said, “Twelve minutes to my train.” With anyone else, I’d have guessed that this was a cheap maneuvering tactic, but Nick seemed earnest in his regretful tone. He didn’t want to leave me here on my own.

And he didn’t leave: he stayed a few hours longer before he could tear himself away.

Finally, we stood on my front steps, looking out past the vast lawn in silence. To the casual observer it would have appeared that we had nothing to say; rather, so many thoughts bubbled to the tip of my tongue that not a single one of them could force their way out.

“I’ll call you up,” he said, again with some perceptible reluctance.

“Do, old sport.” How was it that I had spent so many hours telling Nick Carraway my life story but could only stand here now, struck dumb? “I suppose Daisy’ll call, too.” The last of my hope for reconciliation may have escaped as I said so, feeling with every fibre of my being that yes, she’ll call too.

“I suppose so.”

“Well,” I said. “Good-bye.”

We shook hands, like strangers just meeting, like common acquaintances. He began to walk away, and then turned, and shouted at me something unforgettable.

“They’re a rotten crowd.” The wind tore the words out of his mouth, and he stared at me, upon the stair-steps of my mansion, and continued breathlessly: “You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.”

What I could never have said to him, he said to me with perfect clarity, perfect straightforwardness and perfect earnest. As his words registered I wavered slightly, with shock perhaps, or something else, and then an unsuppressable grin broke forth from me at the compliment. And then he continued across the lawn.

**Author's Note:**

> as always i would appreciate suggestions to make this better in any way, it’s kinda ehhh but I just decided to post anyway


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